As you all know by now, Barack Obama won in by a wide margin yesterday over John McCain. I am disappointed. I hoped McCain would magically pull this election out, but I think people's opinions of bush and the Republican Party have dropped to the point where such a victory may have been impossible, especially with the shape the economy is in. But I guess we need someone in office who isn't George Bush at this point. The next four years will certainly be interesting ones.

And In the past few weeks I have gotten four new emblems, one of them appearing in my profile today.

It's a bloodbath out there.
Proud recipients of this emblem immersed themselves in our Gears of War 2 gameplay marathon. The rubber duckie was optional.

'Twas a good marathon, and in my opinion, a good emblem was given out for it. The other three I got were the Virtual Sackboy and the two Halowwen scavenger hunt emblems. Emblems are cool.

Oh boy, where do I begin...

Today is Election Day! All I can say is "finally." I am so tired of this Presidential race and just want closure either way at this point. Tomorrow I will go to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin to be our next Pres./VP combo. I don't like either very much, but I'd rather have the experienced McCain in office at this point. I realize Obama has a pretty good chace of not only winning this election, but winning in a landslide, which I don't like, but I still feel I should vote. (Though here on Massachusetts, my vote is essentially rendered meaningless by the overwhelming Democratic leaning population.) I'm also going to vote against John Kerry, simply because I dislike the man, not that my one vote will have much of an impact in his likely landslide victory. As far as state positions go, I'll be voting for the Republican in every case. I consider myself Conservative, but I'm not a true Republican, so in a sense, I am considering my vote a protest vote. The Mass. State government is roughly 80% Democratic, and there is literally no opposition within the government. Whatever the Dems want, it is passed quickly. I consider that dangerous. I believe this is the reason why the Mass State government seems to be full of inefficiency corruption (take the case of Diane Wilkerson as an example; it took her years and multiple convictions to finally be unseated. If you want inefficiancy, look up the Big Dig). Its been so safe for the Dems for so long that they have grown too comfortable. We need to shake things up a bit here in MA to keep the Dems honest, and that is why I will cast my protest vote. As far as the ballot questions go:

The ballot questions in MA are...

Question 1- This question involves the income tax. A "yes" vote will eliminate the income tax. A "No" vote will keep it the same.

My take: I'm torn on this one. Being a conservative, lower taxes and less government spending are appealing to me. But I worry that cutting the tax to 0% is too extreme. It'll cut the State budget (which is strained as it is) by about 1/3. I do see it as a way of shaking things up a bit and keeping the Dems in line with their spending, yet I worry the meat of this will end up being taken out on the schools. I'm not sure about this one yet.

Question 2: Question 2, if voted yes on, will make possession of a small amount of marijuana a civil offense to be met with a fine as opposed to a criminal offense to be met with prison time.

My take: Yes all the way. It will make the prisons less crowded, saving the state money, and prevent such a minor offense from hampering people's futures (as it is, the criminal offense on one's record I've heard can be damaging.)

Question 3: A yes vote will prohibit greyhound racing. A no vote will keep it legal.

My take: I've heard that greyhound racing can be pretty inhumane at times (toward the dogs). I was thinking of voting yes, even though a yes vote will cost some people their jobs.

And now I'm burned out in regards to politics...

So, School! My first term grades ended up being all A's and the other day I took the SAT subject tests in Chemistry, English, and Math (Level 1). I think I did fine on Math, alright on chem (the test was VERY hard for me because I had only taken one year of chemistry, and two months of that were wasted when my teacher had a stroke), and the English one I bombed. I only answered about half the questions, and those I answered I wasn't sure on. I don't know why I had so much trouble with it; normally I can do alright on tests like that, but that test did not go well AT ALL for me. I think that test might hurt my chances of getting into certain schools.. :(

And now let's shift to games. I've been playing Fable 2 the most out of any game lately. I beat the game as a "good" character, along with most of the side quests, but I sort of screwed myself out of totally finishing the file (I'd have to go into some spoilers to tell totally why, and I don't feel like making the spolier tags. :P ) I've been playing as a "evil" character now, terrorizing Albion through murder, pillage, and vulgar thrusts while only in my undergarments (which is a crime). I may consider writing a review for it at some point in the future.

And that is it for this blog...

Except for one thing I just remembered. We held a mock election at my high school today, ad to no great surprise, Obama, Kerry, and the other Dem. candidates won by very wide margins. Youth + Massachusetts = A Democrat's dream. :P

I turned 18 about eighteen minutes ago now! Go me!

The amount of stuff I can do in the world just increased. Yet I feel about the same. Oh well.

Birthdays FTW!

Thing one- I have been promoted to General Moderator status! Horray! (I'm most glad that I can stop playing Superman 64 now...)

Thing Two- I purchased Fable 2 today! But before I get into that, let me get a small rant out of the way-

The "childhood" stage sucked. It really did (though the story twist at the end was good). It was far too linear and there were too many glitches. The voice acting in the game is awkwardly paced to the point where it really takes me out of the game. The pauses between characters speaking is awkwardly long. You know, sort of like this. I bet its something I'll have to get used to... but I guess after playing games like Mass Effect where the dialogue is so well done, anything less than that won't appear as well done as it might be. I'm also not seeing much of the laugh out loud funniness yet.

Those things aside, I have to say the game is a good step up from Fable 1. The land does feel more open and the dog is a surprisingly good addition. I like how more buildings and stores are on sale in town (I've only been to Bowerstone so far), and I'm sure I am going to have some fun with that once I get some more money. I also like the addition of jobs. I've only done one quest so far, so I can't really comment on that yet. I have not played any co-op yet either, but I plan to try some this weekend. There is plenty left for me to see and do, and I may write a few more blogs about later.

This here is a clip from an educational video my cIass watched in Spanish last week. Now, if you choose to watch it, prepare to be blown away by the quality of the acting, the intensity of the music, the amazing dance known as "Baile de Queso" (which translates roughly to cheese dance... or something like that), the coolness of the DJ, and the overall effect of all these factors combined.

Honestly, I could not stop laughing the first time I saw this. It takes the word "bad" to a whole new extreme. You don't even need to know a word of spanish to see how bad this movie is.

I don't understand wires, and I probably never will. How the hell do they get so tangled? I just looked down and noticed my wired 360 controller and the play and charge kit for my 360 wireless controller and noticed the unbelievable tangle they are in. How does that happen? I untangled them about a month ago, and I barely ever use them these days. Yet, they are tangled in such a way that the mind boggles at the thought of just how that could happen. I couldn't tangle the wires that well even if I tried myself! It's as if the wires have a mind of their own, and somehow conspire to twist around one another in the most counter-intuitive ways imaginable.

Then there were the wires in my brother's room back when we had a Gamecube and a PS2 in there. At least once every month, I'd have to spend 30 minutes untangling this MASSIVE ball of wires (composed of two controller wires for each system, the red/white/yellow port things for each as well as a few other wires) that somehow formed over the course of a mere two or three weeks. These tangles could only be described as epic. The tangle formed a ball with a diameter of roughly six inches, sometimes larger depending on how much of each wire was held in the tangle.Untangling that mess required legendary patience on my part. LEGENDARY patience. At least now we have a Wii in there that doesnt have wires to tangle (we still have Gamecube controllers hooked up to it when we play Brawl, but most of the time the controllers are wrapped up, not in use). That reminds me that I should probably wrap the wires around the controllers so I won't have to worry about them getting tangled, but who wants to do that, right?

When I think about it, the tangles are likely caused by the wires moving over one another and when they are picked up, causing little tangles that slowly build up. Still,I have a hard time believing that those massive clusters of wires in my brother's room formed on their own. Some higher power had to be involved. In fact, if you want proof of God's existence, you need only look to my brother's room circa 2004-5, where God's sick sense of humor is on clear display. No natural phenomena could create such abominations. Damn wire tangles, Damn you to Hell! :cry:

I guess this series goes to show you that the regular season doesn't really matter. The Angles had the best record in the American League, its just that when the playoffs came around, they sort of choked (not quite choking though, what the Cubs did was choking.) They were terrible with runners in scoring position and made enough mistakes to give the Red Sox a chance to pull away, and tonight in game four, the Angles made an error which did cost them the game. In the top of the ninth inning, with a man on third and one out, the Angels try a suicide squeeze to score the guy, a very risky play. But on this particular squeeze, the batter MISSED the ball when he tried to bunt. As a batter, you HAVE to AT LEAST make contact in that situation. You HAVE to. After missing the ball, Varitek ran after the guy running from third and tagggayed him out.

And from there, the Red Sox capitalized. Jason Bay doubled, and Jed Lowrie singled him in. The Sox won 3-2. It does suck that Masterson squandered an amazing pitching performance by Jon Lester though, but a win is a win right? I am really glad that I'm not going to have to stay up late to watch a game 5, and that the next series is going to be all East Coast times.

Go Red Sox! Beat those damn Rays.

Well today I took my first real trip to visit a college I am thinking of attending. The college I visited was WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), an engineering school. It is located in midwestern Massachusetts in the city of Worcester, and is only about an hour and a half away from my house. I'm not sure if I want to go far away for college or not. Most of my family lives out here in New England, so if I went out west I may not see them very often, but at the same time, I don't want to limit myself. Even though I do kind of want to leave Massachusetts, I won't let that desire stop me from attending a good college in the area.

Anyway, onto the college itself. The school is pretty much dedicated to Engineering. Most of the majors they offer deal with engineering. I've been thinking of going into engineering, so I guess that is why I went there today. It is a rather small college. The campus is small, as is the student body, probably because of the school's narrow focus. I don't necessarily view that as a bad thing, but coming from a small high school, I sort of want something bigger than WPI. The small student body does allow for smaller class sizes though (15-20), and I do consider that a good thing.

The school seems to have a rather unique academic system. It has four terms instead of two semesters, and a much larger focus is put on projects and solving problems, because as the tour guide said, that is what engineering is all about. Before you can graduate from WPI, you have to finish four major projects (along with maintaining certain academic levels, obviously): A project in the humanities that shows you are competent in them, a general engineering project, and a project specific to your major. Some of the major-related projects people worked on seemed kind of cool, for example these civil engineers worked on a portable device that could filter dirty water and make it clean. I'm not sure how successful you have to be with the project, but I think you have to at least make a strong effort. The tour guide implied that actual companies that hire engineers actually sometimes become involved in these projects. In fact, he said 90% of graduates from WPI either have a job in engineering right out of college or accepted into a graduate program somewhere. If true, that means that surviving the college experience at WPI could be rewarding.

As far as the humanities project thing goes, the tour guide explained to us that the school wants to make sure you can express your ideas correctly. After all, what good would a great engineer be if he could not express his ideas in writing correctly? The school does have a very light humanities courseload, which I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I do kind of want to become an engineer, and english type classes have always been my least favorite, but I also want to receive a good all-around education. I'm torn.

I guess overall it seems like a good school. If a person wanted for certain to become an engineer, then that school would be perfect for them. The thing is, I'm not 100% sure if that is what I want to do, so going there would in a sense trap me into becoming one, whether I wanted to or not, unless I transferred schools. My overall impression of the school was very good though, and I may apply to it. My SAT scores fall in their higher range for applicants, so I'm pretty sure I could get in. Its just that I'm not sure if I want to. :P I could get into a better school after all. (This is not saying WPI is a bad school, as it is ranked by US News as #71 in the nation.... )

Next week I may go visit Brown University in Rhode Island. That would be a tough school for me to get into, but I can;t lose anything by trying, right?

I went to the dentist today for a cleaning. And they found something wrong. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I went to the dentist and had them find nothing wrong. It's either a cavity or a lecture every time, I swear. And this time its a small cavity.

And my dentist wonders why people fear him.

Well, as all of you who follow the NFL probably know, the Patriots got manhandled by the lowly Dolphins last Sunday. That was depressing to watch, for sure. But right now, that is not what is bothering me. Some of the Patriots players actually had the nerve to complain about the fans booing them and leaving the stadium early last Sunday.

What? Are you kidding me?

The Dolphins are one of the worst teams in the NFL. The Patriots were in the Super Bowl last year. And on that third game of the season, that team comes into Foxboro and makes fools of the Patriots entire team, and they get mad at the fans over booing?

Here is a quote by my favorite player on the team, Ellis Hobbs:

"It amazes me, amazes me, how people react. You would think that this organization hasn't won as much as they've won and hasn't been successful in the years that they have.

"Expectations are that high that we're not allowed a bad game or something like that. How many times has somebody had a bad day at the office? How many times has somebody missed a deadline and not gotten in the paper? Missing whatever, forgetting to fix their kids' lunch?"

I understand what he is saying in a way. Perhaps us New England sports fans do feel a bit entitled and used to the teams success. However, the game, if you watched it, wasn't even competitive. The Pats let up huge plays over and over and over and were fooled by the same trick play 6 times. That was more than a bad day Mr. Hobbs. That was pathetic. You don't want people to boo? Don't let Miami run you over. Even if you lose, make the game at least competitive. If you are going to get blown out, at least have it be done by a good team, like Indianapolis, not Miami. I think, Mr. Hobbs, that you are too used to the cheering. Oh, and by the way, I am still mad at you for letting up that winning score in the Sper Bowl last year.

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And on a lighter note, the Red Sox clinched a playoff spot tonight. That means they get at least a chance to defend their championship, even though likely enough they will face the Angels in the first round and lose. But recently, the Red Sox have blown away the Angels whenever they face them in the postseason. Who knows what will happen.

Also, in a major change in team policy, the team decided to retire the number of Johnny Pesky. Normally, the team requires that a player spend at least 10 years with the team, be elected to the Hall of Fame, and end their career with the team, and Pesky meets none of those requirements. However, he has done so much for the team, and who knows, he could have been elected to the Hall of Fame had he not gone to fight in WWII. Other than playing for the Red Sox, he managed the team for two years, and for the past 35 years or so, has been with the team as an announcer, as a public relations guy, and other various jobs. He works with the Jimmy Fund as well, my friend who has cancer even met him a few times. Hell, Pesky even has a foul pole in Fenway named after him, as well as a locker in the team locker room. I look forward to seeing #6 put up in the rafters. This will also be done the day before his 89th birthday. Wow.